Strategy choice in sociocultural context

Historically, research on strategy development has focused on charting changes in modal strategy use associated with age and experience. In recent years, however, researchers have begun to document the variety of strategies children have in their repertoires at different ages and with different degrees of experience on tasks. Of growing importance is understanding the processes by which children choose among available approaches. In this paper, I review evidence that sociocultural influences play a powerful role in shaping both the repertoires of strategies individuals have available to solve problems, and the choices they make among those strategies. (C) 1997 Academic Press.